The NHL lockout, and why sports don’t love you

Because if sports truly cared about its fans, we wouldn’t be reading about a work stoppage – an owner-imposed lockout – in the NHL that began this past Saturday. If you’re scoring at home, that’s two work stoppages in a decade. And the last one wiped out an entire season.

This one doesn’t appear as though it will end soon, either. No one is reporting any progress.

The reason for this stoppage is pretty much the same as the last: money, and how much of it will be shared between the owners and players. When a bunch of millionaires and billionaires squabble over salaries, it seems hard to sympathize with either side, though the position of ownership in this case seems particularly outrageous. They’re asking the players to accept a reduced share of the league’s revenue, which seems difficulty to justify, considering it was only seven years, during the most recent labor strife, that the players accepted a major concessions – a 24 percent salary rollback.

But that’s hardly the point.

The point is, it’s always worth remembering that sports is the entertainment business, and our teams really only care about our loyalty so long as it prods us to buy premium tickets. And if we wash them down with a couple $8 beers, so much the better.

It’s a sad, cynical way to view our favorite teams, which often are as much a part of our identities as our livelihoods, but it’s also the truth – business as usual, you might say.

Don’t believe me?

Take a look at the empty NHL arenas this fall and tell me: Where’s the love?

8 Responses

It’s not cynical its fact. Many people who bought football season tickets for many years, myself included, were rewarded with the PSL concept. I chose not to drink the Kool Aid and now watch the game on my flat screen. It took a while to get used to not having to pay $25 to park and who knows what for gas and tolls, on top of the ticket prices, but I did get used to it and now wonder what took me so long.

Very well put. The worst part is that this didn’t even have to happen. Back in 2004, the league was in shambles and the game itself was dull, so as upset as I was that the season was cancelled, it was, for want of a better word, necessary. Now it’s just based on the greed of the owners and Bettman. I hope the fans finally say enough is enough and boycott the league if and when they resume… because this diehard fan already has had enough.

All i can say is it took me a long time to warm up to the NHL after the last mess…I mean lockout…..now it might be even a colder day on the ice before I come back to them.
What with college (Go Union) and AHl games……
I blame both sides at the NHL so bye bye….no NHL network being ordered this year or perhaps ever again

Both sides are nuts. Didn’t the NHL players advise the NHL and NBA players to cave to owners’ demands? Why aren’t they heeding their own advice this time around?

Owners are just as bad. They charge and arm and a leg for tickets and then you wonder why there’s so many empty seats. Even at the minor league level it’s terrible. Albany Devils tickets are now about $20 per adult. WTF?! It was half that ten years ago. The value of the dollar hasn’t decreased 50% in a decade!